Psalms 119:50

COMFORT AND LIFE

‘The same is my comfort in my trouble: for Thy word hath quickened me.’

Psalms 119:50 (Prayer Book Version)

When we study the Psalms with a religious purpose, we would know something of the writers, and it is unfortunate that we know very little about them.

I. ‘My comfort in my trouble.’—It is quite clear that the words are emphatic, that the Psalmist meant to draw attention to himself, both in reference to his trouble and in reference to his comfort. And so you and I must also be emphatic, and devote our attention to our trouble and our comfort. Let us see, then, in what way he speaks of God’s revelation as his comfort.

(a) He would distinguish it from the comfort that other persons receive. The man of the world finds comfort in various sources. But this saint of God speaks of God’s Word as ‘my comfort.’ It tells of that spiritual experience which is peculiar to each one of us when we with all our hearts strive to serve God, and it speaks of that comfort and joy which we can recollect we have received in reading with faith and with love God’s Word, and deriving from it that help which we well know we need in the hour of our trouble.

(b) It is my comfort as revealing to me the cause of my trouble. The servant of God looks to God’s Word, and there he finds that God has allowed this trouble to come upon him to try him, to see whether he really loves Him, to see whether that heart of the pilgrim responds to the heart of Him Who is its King, its Guide. And therefore he begins to feel that the trouble is, after all, one allowed to come upon him by God for some good reason of His own, and in that he receives comfort.

(c) It is my comfort, because it is one always present with me wherever I go. Wherever I am, there is that message from God which I recollect, remember imperfectly perhaps in reference to the exact words, but there it is. I store it up in my memory: it is an ever-present comfort.

II. ‘Thy Word hath quickened me.’—The result of this comfort which God gives to His striving and faithful soldier, in these messages which He conveys through His revealed Word to His soul, gives him new life, quickens him.

This quickening of our spiritual life, this quickening of our effort in the affairs of our daily life, comes to us in two distinct ways.

(a) First of all it comes to us from outside, it comes to us from our reading of God’s Word. Holy Scripture is full of comfort and encouragement to those who strive with a good heart. Only be strong and of a good courage. When the apostles thought they were overwhelmed with the waves of the storm on the lake, Jesus was present with them, and when, in their fear, they saw Him coming, He cried out, ‘Be not afraid! it is I.’ And we see in every page of God’s Word how God was the comfort and support of His servants of old.

(b) And it gives us new life from within. For we recall, in reference to that moment of our spiritual wakening, many a time when God was very good to us.

—Rev. Canon Holmes.

Illustration

‘When we look into so long a psalm as the 119th we seem to see somewhat of the circumstances of the writer’s life. It is a late psalm, a psalm written by one who lived in times when the Jewish nation was being influenced by the heathen nations around, and it seemed almost as if the persecution had gone further in reference to him who wrote the psalm, as if they had actually placed him in durance vile. Yet, clinging more strongly to the words of God revealed to him and to his nation by the prophets of old, they were the sole comfort to him in his distress. “The same is my comfort in my trouble: for Thy word hath quickened me.” Now we come to the application to ourselves. Does it ever happen that we are similarly situated? Has it never occurred to us that we have been under influences which we felt were influences which tended to weaken the hold of the Christian faith upon our souls and our hearts? Certainly, we are from time to time brought face to face with persecution. Have we had recourse to God’s promises, written and preserved to us in God’s Word, and can we say with this pious Jew, “The same is my comfort in my trouble”?’